and be with him
by anamericanmarriage
Summary: Scenes from a common-law marriage.


_This is a re-post from AO3. Title is from "Rusty Chains" by Perfume Genius._

* * *

Brian wakes up.

His fur is matted by cold sweat that grows colder as he lays there, uncovered. He rubs a paw across his eyes and watches headlights cut through the dark of the bedroom from the street below. He listens to Stewie's quiet, even breathing. In, out. In, out. In, a shudder, out. He visualizes himself climbing down out of the crib and padding to the bathroom, taking a piss and splashing some warm water onto his face. In the safety of his mind, he imagines himself climbing up into the crib and stealing back some of the blanket that Stewie had stolen in his sleep and curling around his body protectively. After all, Stewie is only a baby. Babies need protection.

* * *

Stewie is five years old now and that's worse, somehow, than if he were still a baby, because a baby isn't much of anything. A baby is a body that needs protecting. A baby doesn't conceive of itself as anything other than a loose collection of primal needs. A baby can't love. A baby can only want.

But a five year old? A five year old can love. Stewie is five years old and he loves Brian.

"I've loved you since I was an infant," he says, which must be a lie, because an infant loves nothing except that which satisfies its base desires.

* * *

Brian is always too drunk to get it up, so she leaves him. Brian doesn't remember her name when he calls Stewie, only that her hair was blond and that he's sitting on the curb outside of her apartment complex.

"I don't know where you are," Stewie says, patient but unkind. "Can you read the street sign?"

Brian sets his phone down on the sidewalk and crawls over to the bushes to puke. When he's done, he stands up and walks back to the curb on unsteady legs to grab his phone. Stewie, miraculously, is still there.

* * *

There are still marks on Stewie's stomach from the pregnancy. Brian touches them gently, cautiously, as if they'll burn him.

"Why didn't you get these removed?" he asks. His clumsy mouth only enables his clumsier brain; he no longer blames Stewie for misinterpreting his words.

"Thank you very much for reminding me of how unattractive my body is," Stewie snaps. "Why do you sleep with me if you find me so repulsive?"

"You know that that's not what I meant," Brian says apologetically. "I meant, why keep them if you can get rid of them? Don't they remind you of being pregnant?"

"Of course they do," Stewie answers, as if it's obvious. "That's exactly why I've kept them. Not everyone chooses to ignore their past."

* * *

"Here's to double digits," Brian says, raising his champagne flute in a toast.

Stewie's tenth birthday party had been held at a dingy pizza parlor. He has no friends, so no friends were there to join in the celebration. Meg and Chris left halfway through dinner in order to fuck in the men's bathroom. Peter ate so much garlic bread that he threw up under the table. Lois stepped on a cockroach.

The real party happens in Stewie's bedroom. Brian is trying to stay sober tonight, for Stewie's sake, but the champagne is mostly harmless. He rarely drinks it and, when he does, he does so in moderation. It's more of a gesture than anything else.

Stewie raises his flute and clinks it against Brian's. "To double digits," he echoes, and downs the champagne like a shot.

* * *

Stewie is still a shade too young to have really grown into himself, but he's old enough that Brian no longer feels like a pervert for wanting him. Of course, thirteen is still very much a child and still very much illegal, but a lifetime of sucking cock and a growth spurt that leaves him with features that will be striking once the softness of youth fades makes it so that Brian finds it easier than ever to fuck his mouth.

"You feel so good," Brian pants in a cheap imitation of pornography. Stewie rolls his eyes and takes his mouth off of him.

"If you're going to talk like we're starring in an inter-species porno, then you might as well not talk at all," he says, annoyed. "How many times must I give you oral before you either learn how to talk dirty or learn how to shut up?"

"What am I supposed to say?" Brian asks, abruptly perturbed. "God, if I wanted to be criticized in the middle of sex, I'd go back to fucking women."

Stewie leans back on his heels and wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand. "You? Go back to fucking women? Good luck with that, Bry. Even the ones who are too stupid to realize that you're gay aren't stupid enough to stick around once you start crying."

"That was one time!" Brian cries. "And how _dare_ you - "

" - One time?" Stewie interrupts. "Tell me, Brian, if this sounds familiar: 'I love you so much, Stewie! You're so good to me! I don't deserve you! I'm so fucked up!' And then the waterworks. How many times did you call one of your bar skanks by my name before you started bawling all over them?"

Brian slaps him, hard enough that Stewie is thrown off-balance. He looks, for a moment, as if he may cry.

"God, do that again," he groans.

Brian's cock twitches.

* * *

"I'm legal now," Stewie reminds him slyly, as if it means anything to a man who's been fucking him practically since he learned how to walk.

He's taller than Brian, now, has been for a few years, and he easily overpowers him. Brian struggles reflexively, a token display of misplaced aggression, before Stewie begins rutting into him, mostly limbs, all heat. Really, his proportions should make him appear awkward, ever the gangly teenager, but instead he looks like some sort of bizarrely sensual spider from his vantage point on top of Brian.

Brian tells him as much, meaning for it to come across as a playful barb and not as a cue for Stewie to drape himself across the length of Brian's body and bite sharply into the skin behind his ear.

"If I'm a spider, does that make you my prey?" he whispers, giggling as if he's drunk on something besides the potent cocktail of hormones that wrack his body with a near-constant desire to fuck and be fucked.

As if Stewie doesn't already know the answer.

* * *

Stewie fucks other boys in college. He doesn't have to tell Brian for Brian to smell it on him when he comes home for the holidays, but underneath the hardened shell of sarcasm and wit that protects him, Stewie is a generally decent person, and so he admits his infidelity.

"I understand if you're upset with me," he says, choosing his words carefully. "I don't regret any of my actions, but you don't have to forgive me."

"It's fine," Brian says, more tired than angry. He loathes sharing Stewie but understands, objectively, that he is beautiful. He has grown lithe, sharp, gorgeous, an almost androgynous appeal to his features, a mouth made for kissing. A mouth made for fucking, really, which makes Brian want to sink into the ground beneath his feet. "I slept with a lot of women before you, kid. It's only fair that you get the same experience."

"If it helps, I don't love any of them," Stewie offers. "Not like I love you."

* * *

Brian could have been a playwright. 'Could have's are of no matter to Stewie, however, who simply _is_ a playwright. Brian remembers _An American Marriage_ more clearly than he could ever remember _A Passing Fancy_. He remembers fierce humiliation. He remembers the snap of the squirrel's neck underneath his fingers. He remembers New York. How could he ever forget?

* * *

Effective immortality is an effective curse. Brian remains gray around the edges, his fur taking on a sort of dusty quality, his eyes not milky but not as clearly black as they'd been in his youth. His bones ache and his heart beats slower. He will not live forever, but he will live as long as Stewie allows him to. The choice is no longer his to make.

In a way, it's a relief, not having to worry about killing himself. He still wants to die, but it's out of his hands now. He could beg Stewie to do it for him, one quick injection or a gradual weaning-off of the serum, but he lacks the conviction.

He always did.


End file.
